Twist the Sinews of Thy Heart
by Alexis Machine
Summary: 18th century poetry interpreted through FaithWesley fluff. Wow.


Gentlemen behold... this will be become the virgin sacrifice.  
  
You can't do that, Doctor! This stuff belongs to Joss Whedon!  
  
Then you must mate with the Elder God, Steve! Drop your pants!  
  
Well, okay... can't we do dinner first?  
  
Note: Wow... I didn't promise the lengthy and deep opus (hee, penguin) yet, did I? Hopefully not as it's still being formulated in the lovely little laboratory of my mind. Gonna involve... maybe some Wagner? Maybe some Crowley? Certainly some Kafkaesque stuff. I likes Kafka. Cockroaches! In any event, here be more fluff, lovers. Yikeys this is confusing. And read William Blake, from whose poem this title comes. He's far better than me.  
  
***  
  
Faith found waking up the comfy Boston apartment she shared with Welsey damn weird. The shadows were all wrong, for one thing, too deep in the corners and too blue across the ceiling where the moon made them dance and writhe. Sort of like a mirrored ceiling, she mused, only no chance to look up and admire yourself in quieter moments. Waking up in his arms was weird, too, and so was being in bed with a guy period... well, except for sex, and that was way different. She hated being alone, all that empty air kind of crushed you, after a while, but moments of openness and trust only exacerbated the feeling of an endless desert with sandstorms scraping at the soul. Wow, she examined a long, dark curl thoughtfully (stupid split ends) that was pretty fucking poetic.  
  
Completely spent from all this profundity Faith rolled out from under his arm and laid belly to belly on top of him, face against his chest. It was muscular and had that kind of sparsely hairy thing going on that was really, really a major turn on, not like Robin. He'd been really smooth. Still good, fine chocolate, but not like this. She breathed deep, against his ribcage. He smelled good, too, sort of musky and manly. Sex, to Faith, was best when it was hot and spicy, like Pace Picante Sauce. Gee, I am just a gold mine of wit tonight, aren't I? She studied her long, red nails. The tips were bloody and there were little bits of flesh under them. Kind of rough, just a little bit, but you weren't complaining at the time and, hey, you sort of brought it on yourself.  
  
Thank GOD you'd brought it on yourself.  
  
Ronnie'd hit her, a couple of times, when she scratched him. Other times too. He got off on bruising girls in general and, yeah, sure enough that shit had gone over real well. Oh well. Don't dwell on the past. There were worse scars on Wesley than the ones she'd put there, at any time, peppered across his chest and a really deep, ugly one under his chin. Now THAT shit looked like it hurt. She softly brushed her mouth against one of the precious, purple scars closest to her and then kissed the ones around it in series, like an Indian medicine man drawing out venom. Scars were like memories, sort of, a reminder of past pain. Wonder if Wes's memory was like a closet? He breathed a little deeper, and she laid her ear against his chest, loving the heartbeat. Drummers were bad but this was mmkay. Sleepy thoughts were drifting around her mind. Strong arms encircled her and she submitted to the embrace, sinking deeper into him. "Don't squash me," she mumbled.  
  
His voice was very thick with sleep, "You say that as if I could."  
  
"Girl's gotta protect herself."  
  
"I'm sure."  
  
"You know you're one of the only two guys I ever spent the night with in bed?"  
  
"Really? I had no idea you were so chaste."  
  
She scraped her teeth against the flesh of his chest and he jumped very satisfactorily, "No, dumbass. I just never was big on all the 'touchy, feely, lovey' shit."  
  
He made a little, interested noise, "Any particular reasons why?"  
  
"I don't know. Just always seemed like dudes were lying to me, you know?"  
  
  
  
"I'm not."  
  
"That's why I'm still here."  
  
"Couldn't you get to sleep?" he laughed and caressed her soft flank, "I begin to think my talent wanes."  
  
"Talk English, dude."  
  
"I didn't tire you out, enough."  
  
"Nah, I'm tired. Barely hold my fucking eyelids open and I'm sore as hell," she made a little noise and settled against his side like a sated animal, "but..." and trailed off into the inner side of his arm.  
  
"The dreams, again?"  
  
Fully awake, alert, "Yeah, how did you know?"  
  
"You talk in your sleep a good deal, even when you're not having nightmares, and it gets worse when you are. Truly a terrifying monologue."  
  
She winced, "Prison was rough, dude."  
  
"I can imagine," he stroked her back. There was still a little scar tissue there, in spite of her preternatural healing, where floggings from the guards had left her nothing more than raw, red, bleeding meat, and she often suffered muscle tics in her sleep, a reminder of their tasers, "I'm surprised you didn't go utterly mad."  
  
She shivered. His fingers tickled, trailing up and down her spine, "I thought about that shit, believe me. Just go nucking futs and get it the fuck over with. You and Angel coming to talk to me helped a lot. You were the main surprise."  
  
"I'm sorry I couldn't surprise you more often. What was it... once or twice?"  
  
She fingered the huge, nasty scar on his throat, "You got a little busy, man. Finally learned to smile, I guess." She tried to offer a weak one at this bad joke, but that was a good album. Everclear. Also a good alcohol. Faith'd managed to hear the cd a little--never got to drink any of the stuff, though--on the inside, and hadn't the chance to rectify that on reentering the world.  
  
"Another responsibility shirked."  
  
"Seriously, the alone time did me good. I got to think."  
  
"Faith? Thinking? Be still my beating heart."  
  
She sniffed, "I oughta rip it out."  
  
  
  
"But then, oh exceedingly violent one, then I couldn't do this." He flickered his fingers quicker than a street corner magician.  
  
She shivered, "Good point, dude," and sighed, "scars."  
  
He was well occupied by her lower belly and, oddly enough, the deep, puckered scar the Beast had left there, "Hmm?"  
  
"Before your dumb ass woke up and distracted me I was thinking about scars," she rubbed her hands on his chest in slow, voluptuous circles, "shit but you got a lot of em. Ever think of growing a little more chest hair? It'd kind of cover them up, you know. And it is sexy."  
  
"Perhaps, not that I'd know whether it was sexy or not, but one can't really expect one's chest to sprout superfluous hair on demand, can he?"  
  
"I don't know," she whacked him between the nipples with an open hand, "grow, hair, grow!"  
  
"It's a good thing you can't read Latin or I'd have to lock my books of dark knowledge up."  
  
"And just who says I can't read Latin?"  
  
"Faith," he stroked her hair fondly and laughed his breathey laugh, fascinated as always by her mane's waves and curls, "the Cat in the Hat bores you... how would you ever get past Caesar's Commentaries?"  
  
"Julius Caesar was a gaesar," she giggled, "it's okay, though. I'll just glue some carpet fuzz on one day."  
  
"Then I must hie and sleep somewhere safe. Such as a vault, or something equally fanciful."  
  
"Nah, don't go. I like your scars. Gives you... personality, or something."  
  
"Some people do say that we are made up of our experiences."  
  
"Plus lots of water."  
  
"Yes, lots of water,"  
  
"Ha! I did learn something in two years."  
  
"Very likely a good deal more than learned in... damn, how man years was I at school? Eleven? Twelve? I can't even remember."  
  
"You know stuff now, though, Wes."  
  
"Perhaps. Never enough. Always in the dark."  
  
"I like the dark, sometimes, you know? Get all cozy and warm, under the blankets," she snuggled against him.  
  
"Like we are now?" She was, pound for pound by volume, quite possibly the world's perfect space heater.  
  
"Yep, get all cozy and warm and then the dark covers up all the bad scars and the monsters can't find you."  
  
"I always found that the dark closes in on you, binds you, ties your hands and feet and mocks you like a brooding, black cowled phantom. Gets inside the scars and makes them burn." Gunshots exploded out of nowhere and he didn't know if it was inside his head or out on the streets. Faith didn't react, so he figured the former.   
  
"Dude, that sounds more like alcohol."  
  
"Yes. Indeed. It may have been the alcohol, but it was very dark at the time. Darkahol, perhaps?"  
  
"Darkahol. Good stuff, no lie... and I do like your scars, too, and that's no lie either."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Well, it's like that dude said, that you were talking about earlier. If your scars do make you you, then," she trailed off.  
  
"As your reddened claws and reddened stripes frame you."  
  
"No Catwoman fantasies, guy. Been there, done that, dressed up like a little schoolgirl."  
  
"I was thinking more along the lines of William Blake." The lines slunk through his mind like the feline through the jungle, like her lips across his skin... On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire?  
  
Oh. Tiger, tiger. She took it as a compliment. "Maybe I should curl up on the couch like a good kitty or something, not make any new scars," her lips curled up deliciously.  
  
He pulled her on top of him, "And I thought you said you'd learned something in two years." 


End file.
